System for searching and solving for insurance products

ABSTRACT

A system for evaluating and scoring software products in which illustration engines relating to insurance products are run based on a common set of inputs. The illustration engines output a set of output metrics which are common to all illustration engines. The output metrics of products selected for comparison or evaluation are mathematically combined with each other and with the corresponding metrics of from all other illustration engines to determine a score which can be used to compare quickly and accurately the selected product against all other products in the database. The score may be determined by a weighted average in which the weights assigned to output metrics are adjustable at the user&#39;s discretion.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to evaluating insurance products. Morespecifically, the system relates to using software and computer systemsto evaluate a group of insurance products based on a common derived setof output metrics.

2. Discussion of the Related Art

The financial services industry consists of industry segments such asinsurance and banking. In turn, the insurance industry consists ofindustry segments such as life insurance, health insurance, and propertyand casualty insurance.

The life insurance industry includes product markets such as term lifeinsurance, universal life insurance, variable life insurance, annuities,joint products, viatical settlements, preneed insurance, and long-termcare insurance. Insurance carriers sell life insurance products throughvarious distribution channels such as captive agents, independentagents, banks, affinity groups, and financial planners.

The present life insurance product markets for both insurance productproposals and in-force insurance products are inefficient. For insuranceproduct proposals, the problem stems from: (1) an inadequate exchange ofinformation between consumers and insurers during the selling processand, (2) the absence of a real-time auction market in which to pricelife insurance product proposals. Inefficient product markets forin-force insurance products stem from the absence of a system formeasuring an insurance product's performance while that product isin-force.

An inadequate exchange of relevant and available information betweenconsumers and insurers during the selling process is a significantsource of product market inefficiency. Typically, consumers often do notreceive relevant and available information necessary to make an informedpurchase decision. Also, insurers frequently do not receive relevant andavailable information on the consumer and current market pricingnecessary to tailor their proposals for optimal product performance andpricing. Such inefficient transmission of information results in productmarket inefficiency. Such product market inefficiency in the insuranceindustry adversely affects consumers and insurance companies.

Moreover, many life insurance products have complex features thatconsumers do not understand. Consumers' lack of insurance productknowledge opens the door to misleading sales practices such as twisting,churning, and vanishing premiums. Product “gimmickry,” such as lapsebasing, preys on a consumer's inability to detect its existence. Recent,widely publicized accounts of race-based underwriting indicate thatmarket conduct problems can go undetected for years by consumers,insurance company managements, and insurance industry regulators.Insurance industry regulators have attempted to enforce market conductstandards. Insurance companies have sought to curtail sales abuses.Their efforts have not solved the problem.

Market conduct problems occur regardless of an insurance company'sfinancial strength. Favorable financial ratings are no indication of aninsurer's compliance with market conduct standards. Independent ratingfirms evaluate an insurer's claims paying ability. They do not rate theproducts sold by insurers. The life insurance industry has no productrating system that appraises a proposed insurance product's total valueto the consumer.

These and other market conduct problems point to the need for a systemthat assists the consumer in appraising a proposed insurance product'svalue.

The life insurance industry is fragmented. Over a thousand insurerspopulate the industry, and product commoditization prevails. Productcommoditization is common in fragmented industries, brings about pricecompetition, and shrinks margins. Life insurers yearn for productdifferentiation.

Many insurers have high financial and counterparty credit strengthratings that are assigned by rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's,A. M. Best, Moody's and Fitch. But a high rating is no source of productdifferentiation. It is a prerequisite for selling insurance throughcertain distribution channels such as wirehouses, independentbroker-dealers, and banks. Rating agencies intend for a financialstrength rating to serve as a measure of an insurer's claims payingability. Counterparty credit ratings gauge the creditworthiness of aninsurer's debt securities.

The ubiquity of financial strength ratings underscores a struggleinsurers face in their search for product differentiation. Ratingagencies do not rate life insurance and annuity products.

For intermediaries and consumers, life insurance can be a complex andfrequently confusing product. Intermediaries struggle with analyzing andcomparing insurers' products and achieving credibility in theirrecommendations. Sound policy purchase or retention recommendationsrequire informed evaluations of both policy value and the insurer'sfinancial strength. Making unsupported recommendations is risky, andproduct complexity can make evaluating and recommending a policydifficult and subjective.

Consumers usually have no way of objectively knowing whether a policyproposal is better, worse, or about the same as other policies availablein the marketplace. This can result in decisions based on noinformation, bad information, or even irrelevant information, such asrelying on the perceived quality or the financial strength rating of theinsurer offering the policy.

No system exists for embedding real-time, objective product valuecomparisons into the life insurance selling process. Similarly, nosystem for rating the value of an existing policy's expected futureperformance is available in the marketplace. The life insurance industryhas been stuck with an inefficient way of doing business that gives upmargin to product commoditization and where product complexity gets inthe way of closing sales.

For these reasons, the challenges facing life insurance companies andintermediaries in selling life insurance point to an unmet need forindependent life and annuity product ratings. Efficient Markets wasfounded to fill this unmet need.

Likewise, other financial products, including mortgages and othercomplex loans, for example, have costs, fees, expenses, and taxconsiderations beyond principal and interest rate, that vary greatlyamong borrowers and lenders, and are similarly difficult to evaluateprecisely and objectively.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the present invention is directed to searching andsearching and solving for the highest scoring insurance products thatsubstantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitationsand disadvantages of the related art.

An advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and methodfor evaluating insurance products that is based on precise informationabout the user rather than generalizations or approximations.

Another advantage of the present invention is to provide a score forcomparing insurance products in which the score is based on the preciseinformation about the user and the financial information about thepolicy as it relates to that user.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be apparent from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Theobjectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized andattained by the structure particularly pointed out in the writtendescription and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purposeof the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, a methodfor evaluating insurance products is provided that includes storing atleast one illustration engine in a database corresponding to aninsurance product; selecting a group of products for evaluation;determining a set of input fields based on the required inputs of eachof the illustration engines corresponding to each selected product;obtaining input data for each of said input fields through a userinterface; running at least those illustration engines that correspondto the selected products to obtain a plurality of output metrics andtheir corresponding values for each of said products; and scoring saidproducts based on a predetermined scoring algorithm. At least one of theoutput metrics is a common output metric obtained for each illustrationengine. In addition the algorithm scores said products based at leastupon said common output metric.

In another aspect of the present invention, a system for scoring andevaluating insurance products includes a database or illustration enginebank; a plurality of illustration engines stored in said database, eachof said illustration engines corresponding to an insurance product; aset of inputs common to a plurality of illustration engines in saiddatabase, each of said illustration engines determining a set of outputmetrics based on said inputs, said set of output metrics being common toall illustration engines; and a product score for a product based on aweighted average determined by relating at least one output metric tothe value of the corresponding output metric determined by anotherillustration engine.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description andthe following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and areintended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a furtherunderstanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention andtogether with the description serve to explain the principles of theinvention.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the evaluationsystem according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the illustrationengines in an aspect of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 3A-3B illustrate sample output reports according to an aspect ofan embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the presentinvention, example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

The present invention is suitable for evaluating any type of financialproduct, including but not limited to annuities, life, accident,long-term care, disability, health, property and casualty, liability,and malpractice insurance; mortgages, certificates of deposit,derivatives, or any financial product generally that may be reduced,represented by, or modeled as a series of cash flows. The examples andembodiment discussed herein relate to insurance products, but it isunderstood that the system and method of the present invention may beapplied to other financial products as well.

FIG. 1 illustrates flow diagram according to an exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention in which insurance products are being evaluated.In this exemplary embodiment, the system is provided with a series,database, or bank of insurance product illustration engines, a means foraccepting information about a customer scenario, a means for acceptinginformation about products to display on a report, means for processingthe scenario and output from the illustration engines, and a means fordisplaying a report. It is understood that such means may includecomputers and computer networks, for example, including but not limitedto desktop computers, handheld computing devices, client-servernetworks, mainframes, or the like. The illustration engines are softwarethat processes the policy scenario against the details of a particularproduct to yield a series of cash values for each year. In an aspect ofthis invention, the illustration engines illustrate insurance productsfrom a wide variety of carriers. The bank may include illustrationengines for all or nearly all of the products on the market, or for allof a single particular type of insurance product, or for products from asingle carrier.

The output of the illustration engines is a series of values (forexample, premium, death benefit, and total cash surrender value) foreach year, for each product. In another aspect of the invention,decrements may be applied to these cash values to obtain a series ofcash flows. The decrements, which may be derived from mortality or lapsetables, or both, represent the probability of death, probability oflapse, and probability of persistence (that the customer will stay withthe policy and not die or lapse). Applying one or more of these thedecrements to the values for each of the products that are output by theillustration engines results in a series of cash flows for each product,the elements of the cash flow being death benefit, premium, and cashvalue.

An aspect of this embodiment of the present invention is illustrated inFIG. 1. In step 101, information about the products to be reported on isinput into the evaluation system. In an aspect of this embodiment, theuser may be presented with options to select all of the products from aparticular carrier. In another aspect of this embodiment, the universeof products from which the user selects may be limited based on a user'saccess level, those products which they are licensed to sell, or basedon a contractual obligation.

Based on the products selected for evaluation, the system identifies allof the input fields for the customer and policy scenario. This includesinformation that may be required for all products, such as age and sex,as well as financial circumstances. For example, part of the customerinformation may include information about loans or withdrawals from thepolicy. At step 102, the system identifies all of the input fieldsneeded for all of the selected products and presents them for the user'sinput at one time. This way, the user is not asked to input anyinformation more than once, and nor is the user required to inputinformation that is unnecessary.

The user enters all of the information about the customer at step 103,and starts the searching and solving process. Each product is scored byrunning information from the customer scenario through the illustrationengine at step 200, taking that output to obtain a series of cash flowsfor each product which are then used in step 104 to rank and rate theproducts. This scoring process will be discussed in greater detail withreference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

After the evaluation 200 and ranking 104 of all of the products iscomplete, the system presents the results in a user-friendly format atstep 106. This format may include charts, graphs, diagrams or a printedreport, such as the exemplary reports illustrated in FIGS. 3A and 3B, orinteractive screens and spreadsheets which can be further manipulated.Once the information is presented, the system may allow the user tore-score the products at step 108 by adjusting the weightings of theoutput scoring components or by discounting some components altogether,based on user or customer preference.

From the diagram of FIG. 1, it is understood that the system must haveaccess to the details of each of the products as well as a predeterminedset of outputs in order to perform the product evaluation and scoring.These details are discussed in greater detail in FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 illustrates the evaluation process step 200 of FIG. 1 in moredetail. Whereas related art insurance comparison schemes rely on staticproduct data to compare products, stored as insurance tables or staticfields in a database, the present invention is able to provide a moreaccurate comparison and evaluation by relying on an illustration enginefor each product. Each illustration engine is an algorithm or softwareprogram that operates on the input data according to the features of thepolicy. Thus, the illustration engines are not limited to user input inthe form of to stored data tables that only approximate a customer'sdemographic information.

Furthermore, the illustration engines, and the algorithms and softwarethat drive them, return a set of data including premium, death benefit,and cash value. To compare the products to each other, the illustrationengines must output the same data, or at least a common set of data. Inpractice it is convenient to select as the output for the illustrationengine the cash value, death benefit, and premium information. For othertypes of financial products, the illustration engine output may use someindustry standard data. The illustration engines themselves may beprovided to the system by the insurance company itself or a third party.

The operation of the illustration engines is discussed herein in detail.To evaluate the products, the system of the present invention in theembodiment under discussion and as illustrated in FIG. 2 has a databaseof these illustration engines. Once the user enters all of the requiredinput information, the system runs the illustration engines at step 200as noted earlier.

FIG. 2 illustrates the process to evaluate the products using theillustration engines according to an aspect of a first exemplaryembodiment of the present invention. In this particular aspect of thisexemplary embodiment, mortality table 201 and lapse table 202 are usedto compile a decrements table 203 that represents the probability ofdeath, probability of lapse, and probability of persistence (that thecustomer will stay with the policy and not die or lapse).

Before, after, or in parallel to the creation of the decrements table,the illustration engine for each product is run at step 204 based on theuser information supplied in step 103 in FIG. 1.

In one aspect of this embodiment of the invention, the system runs onlythose illustration engines that were selected for comparison. In anotheraspect, the system runs all of the engines in the database, but returnsscores only for those selected. In a further aspect, the system runs allof the engines in the database, scores all of the policies, but onlyreports on a small subset of those policies. Furthermore, the system ofthe present invention may run each illustration engine in turn, in asequential or serial process, or it may run two or more, or all, or theillustration engines at once in a parallel process.

As noted earlier, the illustration engines perform operations andcalculations on the customer scenario input data at step 204 to returnthe set of death benefits, premiums, and cash values for each year foreach policy, to which are applied the decrements in order to obtain aseries of cash flows at step 205. Then the decrements from step 203 areapplied to the illustration engine output from step 205 to produce aseries of cash flows at step 206.

In addition, for different financial products there may be other factorsthat are applied to the output of the illustration engines other thanthe insurance related decrements derived from mortality and lapsetables. For example, in the case of a mortgage policy, while it is wellunderstood how to derive from a mortgage an amortization table for thatmortgage based on principal, down payment and insurance rate, it was notobvious or well understood how to incorporate closing costs, financialcondition of the mortgage lender, fees, taxes and payments into theamortization table to provide the prospective mortgage customer ormortgage borrower with an accurate picture of the real cost to them ofdifferent mortgages.

In this example, rather than decrements, the system may apply closingcost data, taxes, and fees based on the particularities of real estatelaw in the jurisdiction in which the mortgage borrowing tends topurchase real estate to the output of the illustration engine (which inthe case of mortgages may be an amortization table or a series of cashflows derived from an amortization table). However because the system isable to process the output of the illustration engines and apply theseadjustment factors to that output to yield a series of cash flows foreach of the products based on the particular circumstances of acustomer's profile, financial products from different lenders havingdifferent terms, fees, expenses and structural costs can be comparedagainst one another and against other products on the market in a mannerthat is both objective, highly precise, mathematically and financiallyaccurate as well as tailored to the customer's particular scenario.

Once the series of cash flows is obtained at step 206, the policies canbe scored. In the exemplary embodiment being discussed, statistical,mathematical, and financial operations may be performed on the series ofcash flows, or qualitative indicators may be derived from the policiesto obtain qualitative or quantitative scoring components at step 207that may then be combined into scores at step 208. Once scored, theproducts or policies are ranked based on the scores in step 104 as notedabove.

In this example, the scoring components are policy value, sensitivity,and carrier rating. Each of these scoring components may themselves haveone or more scoring subcomponents. For example, the policy value, whichmeasures a policy's expected value for money using current interest anddividend rates, may be determined based on the internal rate of returnthat is calculated from the series of cash flows for each policy.Likewise, the sensitivity, which evaluates the impact of factors such asinterest rate changes, penalties for early termination and policy designon the policy may be a derived from a combination of components that arein part based on the series of cash flows but also based on informationabout the particular insurance product such as efficiency, lapsesensitivity, no lapse guarantee, disclosure, interest guarantee, andmaturity date. Furthermore, the carrier rating may be derived from aqualitative scoring component may be the carrier rating of the carrieras represented by an industry wide rating. For example, the carrierrating may be represented by a Moody's or a Standard & Poor's (S&P)financial strength rating.

In an aspect of the present invention, the scoring for a calculatedvalue such as rate of return may use the value of the internal rate ofreturn, as-is, or for an easier to read and more customer friendlyreport, a single digit value may be assigned to all policies based onthe range in which the internal rate of return for that policy falls.Scoring subcomponents may be assigned scores in a similar fashion. Forexample, efficiency, which is determined by subtracting the internalrate of return from the credited rate of the policy, may be assigned asingle digit score base on the range in which that value falls.

The ranges may be predetermined before the illustration engines are run,or they may be determined based on the statistical distribution of thepolicies. In other words, policies may receive a score of 5 for policyvalue if the internal rate of return is two standard deviations abovethe mean of all of the policies, a score of 4 for policy value if theinternal rate of return is more than one standard deviations above themean, a score of 3 for policy value if the internal rate of return isless than one standard deviation above or greater than one standarddeviation below the mean, a score of 2 if the internal rate of return isless than one standard deviation below the mean, and a score of 1 if theinternal rate of return is two standard deviations below the mean.

Other scoring components are qualitative. For example, the carrierrating of the carrier may represented by an industry-wide rating. Forexample, the carrier rating may be represented by a Moody's or aStandard & Poor's (S&P) financial strength rating. In the case of theS&P rating, the qualitative score values are AAA+ through CC. Thesescoring components are said to be qualitative because they are notcalculated or derived quantitatively by the system of the presentinvention, regardless of whether they are determined quantitatively byan external source.

Once the scoring components and subcomponents are determined, they maybe averaged together or combined using a weighted average. In aspects ofthe present invention, subcomponents are first combined into a group ofscoring components for each policy, each score representing a differentaspect or basis of comparison of the policy. For example, one score maybe policy value, another may be sensitivity, and a third may be carrierrating. These scoring subcomponents may then be combined to obtain anoverall score for the policy (the policy evaluation score). The scoresmay be combined using an arithmetic mean or a weighed average in which,for example, policy value is assigned a weight of 40%, sensitivity isassigned a weight of 40%, and carrier rating is assigned a weight of20%. It is understood that the weights may be adjusted after thescenario has been run through the illustration engine and after thescoring components have been obtained, because recalculating theweighted average does not require running the illustration enginesagain. Similarly, those products that are selected for display in thereport may also be changed without having to rerun the search and solvesystem.

By running the search and solve system on all of the products in thesystem regardless of which of them are selected for reporting, thepolicy compares each policy against all of the other policies in thesystem's universe of policies. The greater the number of products andtheir illustration engines that are incorporated into the system, themore accurate and useful the policy scores are. Thus, while an insurancebroker may only be licensed to sell a few products, the customer willstill be able to see how those products offered by the broker compare toother products on the market.

In alternative embodiments of the invention, the system for searchingand solving for insurance policies for a particular customer scenariocan be used instead to solve for and rank insurance products based on abroad array of policies derived from those products. For example, inanother exemplary embodiment, a number of different customer scenariosare run through the system of the present invention and are scored. Inthis embodiment, each customer scenario generates a policy from theproducts available on the system. Therefore, if a number of differentcustomer scenarios are run through the system, a number of differentpolicies for each product will be scored. These scores can be combinedusing an arithmetic mean or weighted average, for example, to generatean overall score for the products. This overall product score is acombination of the scores of all of the policies generated by each ofthe customer scenarios run through the search and solve system for thatproduct. This way, one product can be compared to all of the otherpolicies and products on the system.

In a further exemplary embodiment, the overall product scores canthemselves be combined using an arithmetic mean or weighted average toyield a product line score. A product line would represent, for example,all of the products of a particular type or that fall in a particularcategory. For example, in the example of life insurance, a product linemay be whole life insurance, variable life insurance, term lifeinsurance, or annuities. All of the product scores for term lifeinsurance products may be combined together to obtain an overall scorefor term life products generally. This way, the term life product lineas a whole may be compared and ranked against all of the other productsand policies in the system.

Furthermore, the present invention may be extended so as to furtheraggregate the scores. Product line scores for each product line of aparticular category may be combined to produce an overall score for thecarrier, or product lines scores for all carriers.

Other ways of aggregating the policy scores are envisioned by thepresent invention, and it is understood that one of ordinary skill inthe art may contemplate variations or modifications to the embodimentsdiscussed herein that would also fall within the scope of the invention.

Furthermore, in an industry such as insurance that is highly regulatedand which insurance brokers are only able to sell that small number ofproducts for which they are licensed, this gives the customer theability to see at a glance whether those few products that theparticular insurance broker that they are in consultation with hasoffered them, the customer is able to see where those insurance policiesrank with respect to other policies which are available. This way thecustomer is able to get an objective determination of whether a policythat is being offered to them is a good one relative to other policieson the market. Therefore, if an insurance policy that is offered to themfrom a particular insurance broker is weak in one particular scoringarea or another customer is then able to take their business elsewhere.

Likewise, an insurance broker who notices that a particular product forwhich they are licensed to sell is weak or strong may alter the productoffering he offers to his clients. An insurance broker may be able touse this product to select a shelf of products that they want to offer.For example, very large financial institutions evaluate a large numberof products to determine shelf space. They may be able to use thissystem of the present invention to select those products that are mostsuitable their clients.

In addition, the system can be used by a customer who is already coveredby an in force insurance policy to evaluate a potential replacement. Thesystem allows the policyholder to compare the in force policy againstwhat that customer could buy at that moment and determine whether it isworthwhile for the customer to cash out of their current policy andpurchase a new one or whether their current policy is a good one.

In particular in the insurance industry, 1035 exchanges are replacementsinvolving the tax-free transfer of cash value from one policy toanother. Over the years, a great deal of controversy has existed overthe high number of unnecessary replacements. Producers struggle with notwanting to appear to be churning their blocks by suggesting policyreplacement for additional commission. However, in many instances, it isin the policyholder's best interest to exchange their policy but theproducer is apprehensive in suggesting the change for fear of appearingto be churning. In this context the system with the present inventionmay be used to determine whether or not the policies that are beingexchanged are worthwhile exchanges or whether they are simply exchangesin the course of churning; it provides an independent, third-partyevaluation. In addition, there are trust owned life insurance policies(TOLI), bank owned life insurance policies (BOLI), and corporate ownedlife insurance (COLI) policies which are high value policies, which arepurchased by institutions or entities that are less familiar withinsurance products. For these markets, the system of the presentinvention may be used to determine whether or not the product underconsideration, or in existence, is of good value. This is particularlyvaluable for the TOLI market, where the trust officer has a fiduciaryresponsibility to manage the institution or the trustee's money to thebest of their ability. The system of the present invention provides thetrust officer with a tool to determine whether or not the life insurancepolicies under their management continue to be of good value and itprovides a report documenting the results of the evaluation

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variation can be made in the present invention withoutdeparting from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, it isintended that the present invention cover the modifications andvariations of this invention provided they come within the scope of theappended claims and their equivalents.

1. A method of evaluating insurance products for a customer comprising:determining a quantitative scoring component for at least two productsin a plurality of insurance products, said quantitative determinationbased on information about a customer, wherein at least two insuranceproducts in said plurality are not from the same insurance company. 2.The method of searching for insurance products of claim 1, wherein saidquantitative scoring component is determined based on a series of cashflows, said series of cash flows based on two or more decrement factors.3. The method of searching for insurance products of claim 2, whereinsaid cash flows are derived from death benefit, cash value, and premium.4. The method of searching for insurance products of claim 2, whereinsaid two decrement factors include at least one of probability of death,probability of life, and probability of persistence.
 5. The method ofsearching for insurance products of claim 1, wherein said step ofdetermining a quantitative scoring component comprises determining saidquantitative scoring component for all products in said plurality. 6.The method of searching for insurance products of claim 2, wherein saidseries of cash flows is based at least on information about thecustomer.
 7. A method of evaluating financial products, comprising:obtaining a series of cash flows for a plurality of said financialproducts; determining a first quantitative scoring component for each ofsaid products; determining a second qualitative scoring component foreach of said products; and determining a score for each of said productsbased on said first scoring component and said second scoring component.8. The method of evaluating financial products of claim 7, wherein saidseries of cash flows includes a cash flow for each year.
 9. The methodof evaluating financial products of claim 7, wherein said firstquantitative scoring component is internal rate of return.
 10. Themethod of evaluating financial products of claim 7, wherein said firstquantitative scoring component is the credited rate of the policy minusthe internal rate of return.
 11. The method of evaluating financialproducts of claim 7, wherein said second qualitative scoring componentcorresponds to the financial strength of a firm offering said financialproduct.
 12. A method of searching and solving for insurance products,comprising: determining a series of cash flows for each insuranceproduct in a plurality of insurance products based on a customer'sinformation and financial scenario; quantitatively determining the valueof at least one scoring component for each insurance product in saidplurality of insurance products based on said series of cash flows; andranking at least one insurance product.
 13. The method of searching andsolving for insurance products of claim 12, wherein said series of cashflows includes a cash flow for each year.
 14. The method of searchingand solving for insurance products of claim 12, wherein saidquantitatively determining the value of at least one scoring componentcomprises calculating the internal rate of return for each insuranceproduct based on the series of cash flows.
 15. The method of searchingand solving for insurance products of claim 12, wherein said financialscenario comprises information about expected withdrawals from thepolicy.
 16. The method of searching and solving for insurance productsof claim 12, wherein said financial scenario comprises information aboutexpected loans from the policy.
 17. The method of searching and solvingfor insurance products of claim 12, wherein at least two of saidinsurance products are not provided by the same insurance carrier.
 18. Afinancial product evaluation, comprising: a list of at least twofinancial products from a plurality of financial products, wherein eachof said products in the plurality is ranked, said rank determined basedon a value of at least one scoring component derived from a series ofcash flows, said series of cash flows incorporating a customer'sdemographic information and financial circumstances; and wherein said atleast two financial products are listed according to said rank.
 19. Asystem for evaluating insurance products, comprising: a plurality ofillustration engines for each of a plurality of insurance products; aplurality of customer scenarios, each of said customer scenarioscomprising demographic and financial information about a customer, saidcustomer scenarios being different from one another, wherein each ofsaid illustration engines operate on each of said customer scenarios;and generates a series of cash flows for each product based on each userscenario; a scoring engine operating on said series of cash flows andproduct characteristics for at least one product and customer scenarioto produce a policy score; wherein said policy scores for at least onepolicy are combined into a product score.
 20. The system of claim 19,wherein a plurality of product scores for products within a product lineare combined into a product line score.
 21. The system of claim 19,wherein a plurality of product scores for products within a group arecombined into a composite score.
 22. The system of claim 19, whereinsaid policy scores are combined using a weighted average.